Under the Apple Trees

Heat, YouTube and a New Beginning

Life in Rural Bosnia: Heatwaves, Podcasts and Slow Living

It is late on a Friday afternoon, and I am standing beneath one of the apple trees in our garden.

Several apples have already fallen. They are lying in the grass, slowly beginning to rot, surrounded by bluebottles and all manner of other insects making the most of the sweet juice.

One apple has a hole in its side. The insects are busily eating their way through it, no doubt becoming slightly intoxicated as the fruit starts to ferment.

Eventually, the fallen apples will be collected and taken to our neighbour. Nothing here is wasted unnecessarily. They may well find their way into a future batch of rakija.

A Very Hot Summer in Bosnia

The grass beneath my feet is mostly brown.

It has been exceptionally hot, with the temperature reaching around 35°C today. Our days have taken on a different rhythm because of it.

We get up early, sometimes at half past five, and potter around doing whatever needs to be done. Then, as the heat builds, we retreat indoors and hide.

There really is no better word for it.

Tamara’s mother is staying with us and spends much of the hottest part of the day watching old British television programmes on one of the satellite channels. We wait until around eight in the evening before venturing back outside to continue working in the garden.

The garden itself is looking rather sorry for itself.

Katastrofa, as people say here.

Despite the heat, life continues. Somewhere nearby, a neighbour is working with a chainsaw. The familiar sounds of village life carry across the fields.

Fruit From the Garden

It is still lovely to see fruit growing on the trees.

We have several varieties of apples, along with pears and plenty of plums. Tamara recently brought down a bucket filled with wonderfully sweet blackberries.

My favourite way to eat them is mixed with Greek joghurt. Nothing complicated. Just fresh fruit from the garden and something cool to go with it.

The kitchen garden is protected by green netting, although even beneath that shade some of the plants are showing the effects of the heat.

The tomatoes are looking surprisingly good. One of our cats has discovered that the space beneath them makes a particularly comfortable place to spend the afternoon.

The green peppers are coming along nicely too.

Walking around the garden, I am still struck by how different this life is from the one I knew growing up in London.

I remain, at heart, a city boy who somehow ended up living in a village in rural Bosnia and Herzegovina.

All these years later, I still find it remarkable.

A Changing Climate

When I first came here, I remember summer temperatures of around 26°C feeling particularly warm.

Winters, meanwhile, could be extremely cold, occasionally dropping towards minus 20.

These days, the summers seem to reach 37 or 38°C with increasing regularity. The winters feel much milder, with only a light dusting of snow where once there were long periods of bitter cold.

Perhaps memory simplifies things, but the seasons certainly feel different now.

Choosing Audio Over Algorithms

These walks are also giving me space to think about the direction I want my work to take.

Several months ago, I decided to make a serious return to YouTube. I enjoyed creating the videos, but I soon found myself being drawn back into the familiar world of schedules, statistics and algorithms.

A video had to appear at a certain time on a particular day because that was supposedly what the platform expected.

Then came the constant temptation to check views, watch time and subscriber numbers.

I have always struggled with that cycle of anticipation and dopamine. I suspect more people are affected by it than would care to admit.

The YouTube channel is still there. I have not deleted it, and I will probably publish the occasional video.

What I will not be doing is feeding an algorithm every Sunday morning simply because I feel that I must.

I have become rather anti-algorithm.

Returning to Podcasting

On 23 June, I properly relaunched An Englishman in the Balkans as an audio podcast.

The programme had existed in different forms before, including a period on Substack, but this time I invested in a dedicated podcast-hosting platform.

Audio feels more natural to me.

It allows me to tell stories, record conversations and take you with me on walks like this one without worrying about cameras, thumbnails or whether something looks visually exciting enough.

There are now listeners tuning in from different parts of the world, although I do not always know exactly where everyone is.

That is why I would love to hear from you.

Tell me where you are listening. Send me an email or leave a voice message. I would like to begin building a map showing where listeners to the podcast are based.

You can also send questions about my life or about living in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Unless you ask me not to, I may include your voice message in a future episode before answering your question.

I think that could become a lovely part of the podcast: not simply broadcasting at people, but creating something together.

Soundscapes and Stories From Bosnia

I have also created a membership area for those who would like to support the podcast.

It includes soundscapes recorded here in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

One of my favourites is a two-hour recording of the dawn chorus outside our home. It begins in darkness and gradually fills with the sound of birds waking as the morning arrives.

I sometimes listen to it myself when I am feeling stressed.

There are rain recordings too, although we have not had much rain lately.

Members will also receive shorter episodes, additional recordings and stories that may not appear in the main public podcast.

My aim is to build a collection of sounds, conversations and personal stories that document life here as I experience it.

Documenting a Life

I have also begun the rather daunting process of documenting my own life.

I am using artificial intelligence to help me organise memories and create a timeline. I might start with a year, a place or a moment, perhaps visiting my grandmother in South London when I was seven, and gradually build the story around it.

Eventually, I hope this will become a book.

I have been fortunate enough to live an eventful life: nearly three decades connected to the military, travelling around the world, climbing volcanoes in Ecuador, visiting Ethiopia and eventually making a home here in Bosnia.

Some of those memories will also become private audio episodes for members.

There is something particularly powerful about hearing a person tell their own story in their own voice.

More Walk-and-Talk Episodes

I plan to record more of these walk-and-talk episodes.

For the moment, however, I will need to choose my times carefully. Walking along the exposed ridge above our village in this heat would not be particularly sensible.

There is precious little shade, and I need to be careful about dehydration.

Early mornings and cooler evenings will probably become my recording times until the weather changes.

These episodes will not be heavily produced. They will simply be me walking, noticing what is around me and talking about life as an older Englishman living in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Sometimes that will mean discussing the garden.

Sometimes it will mean telling stories from the past.

Sometimes it may simply be the sound of a village evening, a distant chainsaw and insects becoming tipsy on fallen apples.

Thank you for walking with me.

Wherever you are listening in the world, I appreciate you allowing me to be your cheerful earful.

Vidimo se opet.

We will see each other again.